No one really knows Karrah as a fighter, but since the begining I have been wasting time and lessons into preparing him to become a warrior. I even have a extensive healing system. But ever since I came to Lusternia, my interests in IRE combat of any sort has diminished.

I've done some combat here and there, but now I have decided to push Karrah to be 100% combat-free, and persue other angles of the realm (such as a trade and politics). I know many people who avoid combat are successful and satisfied in the realms.

In Imperian I was used to being a politican and a warrior. But when I compare it to real life, I realize that the most common case is for the politicians/ministers/leaders to stay in the safety of their walls (or at least at the rear of the troops), while they have others fight for them.

I know my thoughts are all over the place, but what I'm trying to ask is; if I drop combat altogther, will I be missing too much?

A nice part of Lusternia is you can be fully involved in your city/commune's struggle without fighting at all. Become involved in politics, feed the war effort with your tradeskill, do the quests - combat isn't necessary. You won't be missing too much. You'll be taking another path.

And, of course, you should do this Glomdoring.

You won't be missing a thing, except for the feeling of "sending" other people, which is sometimes annoying when you can't just do it yourself.

That's the thing. I'm interested in RP'ing Karrah into a relatively weak combatant, and wouldn't be able to hold his own against a seasoned warrior. But, if he wanted someone dead, he'd send his men/troops/champion to kill them.

It'd be even interesting to have personal guards to escort leaders (who can't fend for themselves) around.

Then you won't be missing anything.

Before you do that though, you should merry your fiance' before she kills chokes you out in your sleep with her prayerbeads... *sagenod*
love-mimi

I thought those were an-

Er, maybe I shouldn't make that joke here.

Being a non-combatant is fine, I'm satisfied with my experience, though I do admit I wish I was involved more often.

However, in other games, like Aetolia, I was able to fight, and not be instantly enemied to everyone under the sun. Here, you fight one or two people somewhere, you get enemied to the whole org, an order, all their villages, etc, etc, etc. It's very tiresome.

If you are working for your city, avoiding combat completely should be impossible to be honest, if you really want to change paths instead of quitting entirely, why not just defend while persuing other paths, that still leaves all realms of possibility open.

I so cannot believe this attitude. "Give your all or give nothing." And people wonder why so many players burn out...

You can't, because you live in Serenwilde, where you are seldom called upon to fight. When Nil is being raided during a quiet time and there isn't the available manpower to deal with it, I will (and have in the past) go to Prime and demand more help in the most forceful terms available. If we're really in the poo, and city members refuse to help, they'll find themselves without a city. Doesn't mean you have to give your all or give nothing.. it just means that Torak was spot on with his post, and yours is the product of myopia.

No, it means that Magnagora's the myopic one, thinking that it can thrive on fighters alone. Do you have any clue how many complaints I hear about the lack of available goods down south? And it's because you refuse to value the people who're not there to fight.

I find getting into arguments on multiple threads rather like juggling. There is an element of multi-tasking about it..

And that same element of multi-tasking exists in our characters. Luckily, Lusternia is not a game where you tell the Fates: "I want to be a trader" or "I want to be a Magician" or "I want to be a miner" or "I want to be a jeweller"... You can do all these things at once. Aiakon does many of the commoditiy quests every day, he also collects scholars, he writes books, and yes, he fights.

I value the attributes of my citizens according to their relative importance to the city. Clearly there is a different scale of importance in Magnagora, where we are raided often, to Serenwilde, where you sit on yours arses all day writing poetry. Giving 10 raw wood comms to Togmork is hardly likely to earn my praises when a force is trying to take down one of the Demon Lords. I think this makes sense, does it not?

I've never met your character, Exarius, furthermore I know nothing about him. I presume the same is true in reverse.. In any case, I do not "refuse to value the people who're not there to fight". They perform a useful function.. however, I would prefer my citymates to have more than one string to their bow. Those who do earn my respect more than those who don't.

P.S there is no shortage of commodities. Magnagora's comms stash is very large.

Even if there weren't enough fighters, Exarius probably wouldn't help out.

I remember days when it was me, Gorokan, and one other defending against Eiru and Alger on ethereal, dying over, and over, and over, and asking repeatedly for people on prime to come help us, with noone even showing any sign of listening >.<

Were you the third one there? I know there was -someone-, just forget who. Was too busy dying to note it down.

Yeah, I died pretty often in Faethorn.

I don't think it was you who was around that time, though. I remember it because Gorokan was getting really pissed off while me and him and the other person died over and over while they sat around on prime chatting >.>

Personally, to me if you aren't willing to step up and die for your city you aren't a useful member, because at the end of the day its the fighters that matter.

And writers. Glomdoring's getting ludicrous amounts of power from culture right now.